


What do you call it when they really are out to get you

by ICryYouMercy (TrafalgarsLaw)



Category: The Thick Of It
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 20:11:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1400935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrafalgarsLaw/pseuds/ICryYouMercy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are Christmas cards, and Malcolm doesn't want to be dealing with them, or anything else right now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What do you call it when they really are out to get you

**Author's Note:**

> I've been fiddling with this for a while, and I'm not quite happy with it, but I figured I post it rather than delete it and never write again.

It began rather harmlessly, on an altogether rather harmless day. It was also the day of the DoSAC-office-christmas-not-a-party, and therefore a day of wonderful and entertaining blackmail potential. But primarily, it was a mostly harmless day, and it would have remained mostly harmless, had it not, when Malcolm entered his office, presented a never before seen obstacle. Someone had apparently seen fit to leave a Christmas card on the corner of his desk. It might have been Jamie or Sam, but this was not their usual style, and also, they would have been around for Malcolm's reaction. The next possible option was, of course, Nicola. Or Ollie, admittedly, but Malcolm did not even want to think about that specific can of worms. And he sincerely hoped that Ollie had at least slightly better taste than kitschy cats playing with pink yarn on an undersized Christmas tree.

Malcolm, after a moment of deliberating revenge, decided that for the moment, he had actual work to do, and it didn't seem as though the card was doing anything more disturbing than simply existing. He would leave it alone, for the moment, and if he found the time, he might even add it to its author's blackmail folder. Of course, it might simply have been one more attempt on someone's, very probably some misguided idealist's, part to spread Christmas cheer, promote good working relationships, and increase the overall happiness of employees. And if that was the case, the most likely suspect would, once again, be Nicola, or really, anyone from that particular office.

And this would already have been more than sufficient grounds for not thinking about it any further, but since Malcolm tended to be too slow a learner when it came to differentiating between bad ideas that would hurt others, and bad ideas that would hurt others but also hurt him, he could not resist prodding this particular offense to his (and really, pretty much everyone's good taste), and of course, prodding things that were already slightly painful had the rather annoying tendency to make them progressively more painful. So by the time his second coffee of the day had made its way on to Malcolm's desk, the slight annoyance and suspicion had formed itself into a rather small but nevertheless noticeable proto-headache, and it would not take much for that to develop into a proper headache, and then into a proper migraine, and that would then be totally uncalled for.

But as this day had already taken a turn for the worse, and as the DoSAC was probably involved in one way or another, the situation was bound to get even worse yet. The next card arrived on Malcolm's desk accompanied by a small, wrapped package, which had resulted in Sam almost immediately absenting herself from the room under cover of a paper-thin excuse upon noticing it. There was a short moment in which a normal person, or really, any person who happened to not be Malcolm, might have sighed or rolled their eyes or maybe even tried to hide their face in their hands in hopes of thereby making this rather vexing seasonal offering stop existing by sheer force of their exasperation. Malcolm, who sadly enough happened to be Malcolm, and therefore unable to do this, replaced it with a hastily aborted gesture that would almost certainly have been very, very rude had he finished it. He did not, and neither did he do anything else, because as soon as his conscious thinking had caught up with his unconscious (and therefore immediate) Malcolm-ness, he decided that whatever this turned out to be, it was very much not his fucking problem. He moved the offending items aside, and turned to his work.

While he had, after maybe an hour or so, given in and succumbed to the need to occasionally rub his forehead or temples, trying to keep the headache at bay by poking it and hoping it would get uncomfortable and therefore leave him alone, he had managed to not even inquire as to the origins of the cards and gift for almost the entire day, and apart from a few minor incidents with press-unsavy politicians and journalists who weren't quite familiar yet with Malcolm's style of running things, one would almost be tempted to call this day a success. And at that precise moment Sam entered the office, looking vaguely concerned, vaguely confused and almost, but not quite, offended on someone else's behalf. She was holding another envelope.

"I think there has been an incident at DoSAC," she said, handing the envelope to Malcolm as though it was something either dangerous or disgusting, but very likely a mixture of both. Malcolm took the envelope, and added it to the sad collection of misguided seasonal cheer on his desk. The pile had since acquired some tinsel and a singing fish wearing a santa claus hat. Malcolm was not entirely certain how either had made its way into his office, but he strongly suspected it might have had something to do with Jamie's visit earlier that day. And while neither the tinsel nor the fish lead to any actual improvement regarding his headache, that was currently building a blanket fort and getting snacks, it did make him feel ever so slightly better about that day as a whole.

But it really wasn't that important, not when the actual offending parts of the pile still made up the majority of it. And so the current envelope was given equally as much attention as the two coming before, and Malcolm found himself forced to change his plans in order to find out what %@ had managed to fuck things up now. He made his way over to the DoSAC office, intent on finding someone to terrify into either admitting their own fuck-up or accusing someone else, who might then be terrified for further information.

This plan, was immediately and very successfully destroyed upon arrival at the department by Glenn, twisting a badly closed envelope between his fingers, and Robyn, with an uncapped pen in one hand and a brightly coloured Christmas card in the other. Malcolm's headache decided that yes, this blanket fort was a good blanket fort and went on to make tea and settle down for the next few hours. So even if Malcolm had been anyone but himself, and even if the DoSAC had not been an accumulation of everyone and everything the government did not want anymore but could really get rid of, this would still have been a very, very bad moment and would have to be considered a sign of worse things yet to come.

There was one rather awkward moment where Malcolm was intent on not accepting the cards that Robyn and Glenn were just as intent on handing him, and then there was a nervous whisper that broke the unhappy tension in the room. Nicola, bending rather closer to Ollie than she would have usually done, could be heard whispering a nervous and somewhat tense "Does he know?" to Terri.

This perfectly terribly placed question was answered by hectic and probably negative gestures on Ollie's part, and sigh from Terri and a rather exhausted "He probably does now," from Glenn.  
Jamie's face lit up, and Malcolm finally accepted the cards, shoving them carelessly into the next pockets on his clothing that he could find. This, of course, resulted in the two cards ending up in two different pockets, thereby assuring that one of them would almost certainly be forgotten come laundry day, and then Malcolm, in addition to the annoyance about receiving the cards in the first place, would also have another moment of minor vexation upon discovering the paper-fluff on his freshly laundered clothing.

But this hasn't happened yet, yet being only seconds after the cards being discarded in such a fashion. What had, however, happened, was Malcolm's conscious thoughts catching up with his carefully conditioned suspicion to point out that not only did some %@ almost certainly fuck something up, or at least some %@ had apparently done something which had a very clear and very strong possibility of being a fuck up at some later point in time, but apparently that %@ had achieve sufficient self-awareness to decided that they would rather Malcolm not notice that they were being a %@ and fucking things up.

Had Malcolm been wearing glasses, this would have been the moment he would have taken them off in order to rub the bridge of his nose and pretend that as long as he couldn't see someone fucking things up, it wasn't happening, and maybe once the glasses were back on and he could see clearly again, that whatever had been fucked up would have unfucked itself again. But as he was not wearing glasses, a gesture that would have taken several moments in a bespectacled actor, was boiled down into something that was not quite a face-palm, nor was it a shrug, and it most certainly wasn't a sigh, and yet somehow, it managed to combine the exasperation of all three gestures in very, very slight adjusting of the set of Malcolm's shoulders and a slight narrowing of his eyes.

"Maybe we should tell him?" Ollie suggested after a while, when the quiet in the department had gone from awkward over vaguely disquieting to actively threatening.

"There was a problem with the computers, earlier today," Nicola began, her hands fluttering uselessly over the papers she was holding. "And Someone might have accidentally deleted a number of rather important employee records. We're trying to fix it, and IT might have a back-up file, somewhere, and the records were not that important, only government employees, and it would not have been a problem, but Someone Else then told his girlfriend."

"And I wasn't told of this why, precisely?", Malcolm asked, feeling entirely justified in his suspicions, and trying not to react to the fact that said suspicions had now joined his headache in trying to make him as miserable as possible. This was not supposed to happen, not when he had blackmail material to gather and people to terrify into unfucking things.

"Well, we, uhm, see, it's Christmas, and no one is going to print this before next week, and then there's the office party, and we thought that maybe it's not that big a problem?" Robyn finally tried, not quite succeeding in hiding behind a desk and a plastic cup of tea.

This time, an actual gesture was required. Malcolm rubbed the bridge of his nose very, very carefully and then dragged his hand downward over his mouth, trying to fit all the annoyance he could muster into this gesture, while also infusing it with a very certain threat of first verbal, and then at least a threat of physical violence.

And then he decided that no, he was not going to be dealing with this now. The headache had now decided that if everyone else got to have Christmas, it would have Christmas as well, and so Malcolm's head felt as though someone (probably the headache) had decided to install a disco somewhere in there, complete with terrible dancing, too loud music and the stench of spilt drinks, sweat and perfume. It was an altogether nauseating mixture, and Malcolm had to concede that he had precisely no energy and less than no interest in dealing with any fuck-ups now, especially since his usual, easily available victims seemed far more interested in their Christmas celebration than in any sort of political dealings.

"And we thought if you didn't know, then maybe for once, you would stop working and actually enjoy yourself," Nicola offered carefully. "It's Christmas, after all. There's presents, and drinks, and,"

Malcolm never got to find out what else there would be, because his patience had just decided to join the headache and suspicion in their terrible Christmas celebration, and so he really didn't have anything left that would compel him to stay. So he did what he always did when he realised that there was not currently anyone around to terrify. He turned and left. He had an office to be in, people to shout at and apparently, now, a number of employee records to find, or to terrify someone into finding them before an un-terrified and therefore careless employee would fuck it up even worse in their attempt to de-fuck it.

He did briefly entertain the thought that, considering the wonderful blackmail opportunity he was currently missing, this whole thing had simply been an attempt to remove him from the vicinity of any parties to happen tonight, but upon even extremely cursory inspection, it turned out that no, the records in question really were fucked, and whoever had done the fucking had not been exactly delicate about it. And whoever had then decided to hand out the information about the fucking to the public had not been any harbouring any seasonal restraint or pity.

Malcolm counted himself lucky that so far, the public was limited to a handful of political blogs that no one really seemed to read, most of the people apparently more concerned with leaving abusive commentary than with the actual content of the blog itself.  
And then the door opened, and Sam entered with yet another card, this time one being covered in tinsel and displaying the DoSAC logo on its front. Malcolm's headache decided it would much rather be an explosion just now, and Malcolm decided that whatever it was that was going on, it could fucking well wait. And if the entire department was going to be torn to pieces by the press, they had deserved it by now. He took the card, added it to the small pile of Christmas cheer on his desk, picked up his coat and left. He needed sleep, and some painkillers, and everyone else not to be a %@ who fucked things up and then sent him terrible Christmas cards. And if he went home now, he might even get two out of three things on that list.

Of course, that would make it absolutely certain that tonight, there would be no more blackmail material obtained, which was a considerable drawback, but if he went to an office party in his current state, there would be quite the amount of blackmail material provided by him, and that was a risk he was not willing to take. And there would be other opportunities coming his way yet.

He made his way home on foot, both unwilling and unable to face entering any sort of moving vehicle, stumbling with his eyes falling closed, and hoping no one would notice. His head felt like a minefield, every thought and every movement setting off new waves of pain, exploding in colourful cascades behind his eyes. He stumbled into his door before managing to get it open, and then stumbled over taking off his shoes and coat, found some painkillers, and then managed to shut the blinds of his bedroom before just falling onto his bed and passing out.

It was still dark out when Malcolm's phone woke him up, vibrating against his thigh. "you're losing touch, missing a+ blackmail options", no signature. Nicholson, probably. Gloating, as usual. Malcolm decided that his head was not exploding anymore, and it hadn't been midnight yet, but he couldn't muster the energy to get up and go to work quite yet. If he was being honest, he couldn't muster the energy to stay awake quite yet. One hand still clutching the phone, the other falling numb under the weight of his body, he fell asleep again.

At three minutes past four, his phone rang again, a terrifyingly cheerful melody that Malcolm would have changed long ago, but it seemed to make Sam happy, and Jamie angry, which was reason enough to leave it alone for the time being.

He didn't look who was calling, only one person who had that particular ringtone, answering the phone by grumbling something at the pillows, still too tired to properly sit up.

"You're missing out!", Jamie told him, a slight undertone of concern just barely detectible underneath the obnoxious cheerfulness.

Malcolm grumbled something. It did probably involve the word 'fuck', but he wasn't entirely certain. His wakefulness was still somewhat questionable after all.

"This is no fun if you won't play along," Jamie complained.

"Okay, then, I'm playing along. It's four in the morning you fucker, you woke me up." Malcolm felt vaguely proud of himself for managing two full sentences. And then he felt vaguely ashamed that he was in a situation where two full sentences were something to be proud of.

"You're missing out," Jamie told him once more.

"And what am I missing?" Malcolm asked, dutifully reciting his lines and playing along with Jamie's game for the moment.

"You could probably blackmail them into making you prime minister, with everything they're doing."

"Are you taking pictures?"

"No, of course not, what am I?"

Malcolm, who had by now managed to sit up and take some interest in the world around him, decided that this was clearly not worth being awake for, and so he managed to get into bed properly this time, fully willing to fall asleep, without properly saying goodbye to Jamie.

Jamie sighed, very audible and very carefully making sure that he would be heard over the phone. "This is not playing along, you're supposed to threaten me now, Malcolm."

"Right. Threatening. Feel afraid. Now leave me alone, fucker."

There was a moment. Jamie was probably shaking his head now, or rubbing his forehead, or maybe he had just given up on Malcolm and was trying to find someone else to annoy.

"I got you something far better than that. There's video. With sound. Merry Christmas, you %@." And with that, Jamie ended the call, and Malcolm was left with a smile and a somewhat lighter heart. Whatever they had messed up yesterday, and whatever they would fuck up today, at least he wouldn't be facing it alone.


End file.
